


"so he's a ghost story"

by larkspurlemon



Series: (not to me. not if it's you.) [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (bucky also has ptsd but that's a long way down the road), (steve also has ptsd because the russos may be Cowards but i am not), Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, F/M, Mental Health Issues, More tags to be added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Slow Burn, War, honestly this is a long time coming and i'm really proud of this so., if this flops steve posted this.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-19 15:13:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22746493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larkspurlemon/pseuds/larkspurlemon
Summary: Steve tries to let modernity drag him along. And most of the time he succeeds. But sometimes (Sometimes.) an iron ball labelled ‘1944’ will strap around his ankles and refuse to let go.
Relationships: Natasha Romanov & Original Female Character, Sam Wilson & Original Female Character, bucky barnes/original female character, steve rogers & original female character
Series: (not to me. not if it's you.) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635532
Kudos: 1





	"so he's a ghost story"

The pavement glistened and shimmered with a kaleidoscope of red, yellow, and white lights under his tires. The deep, gurgling hum of his engine was almost drowned out by the whip of wind against his ears. DC night air was still crisp, not quite over winter but still not quite spring. Even the buds on the trees were reluctant to come out of their little twists. All in all, despite the small bumps raising on the ends of his arms, it was a beautiful night. 

His mother would have never approved of it— the bike. But it was such a beautiful model: a sleek black Harley-Davidson WLA Liberator (his charming Romanian neighbor had laughed at him the day she saw him drive it back for the first time. Something about “how fitting that Captain America drives a motorcycle called the  _ Liberator _ ”). He tried to find a vintage 1942 model (the one he used in his Howling Commandos days. Call him sentimental.) but, even with S.H.I.E.L.D’s generous paychecks, it was still a little steep when combined with the rent on his apartment and the rates for his insurance. 

Modernity was… strange, to say the least. In a way, a lot of things were better: food, medicine, transportation, and equality. But there were certain things he’d never stop missing. Even three years after waking up, Steve was still trying to find his way in a world that never seemed to stop moving. His job, which required constant over-night flights and fights left him scrambling to pick himself up, let alone get back on his feet. 

One of the strangest things, though, was the fact that there was an entire exhibit dedicated to him at the Smithsonian. He was, as people put it, “a living legend”. 

(Steve always felt that title was a little too glamorous. He didn’t feel like a “living legend”. He felt like a zombie. He was a man both in and out of time. He felt like a man living in a dream world.) 

The part of the exhibit that irked him the most was staring into the face of friends who were long dead. Most of them had lived full lives (Most of them.), lives he sometimes wished he could have lived. (Sometimes. Only sometimes. To keep himself from going insane, Steve developed a new philosophy that he promptly named “Rolling-with-the-punches”, where he, sometimes quite literally, rolled with the punches. It made things easier. In a world where he was friends with an alien, witnessed actual magic, and talked regularly with his dead friend’s son who was strangely  _ older than him _ , waking up after seventy years on ice and not aging a day wasn’t so strange. Still, there were times. Times when things were quiet and he remembered that everyone he ever knew and loved was either dead or dying, times when the click of a lightswitch sounded too familiar to the hair raising snap of the key on a hand grenade, times when the purr of a plane engine miles above him transported him back into the pilot’s chair, looking down onto a sea of clouds and feeling his stomach flip and churn. Times when he’d walk down the street and see phantoms of men who reminded him of a brown haired, blue eyed, six foot weight simultaneously alive and digging at the tops of his shoulders and dead and decayed at the bottom of a ravine. Steve tries to let modernity drag him along. And most of the time he succeeds. But sometimes (Sometimes.) an iron ball labelled ‘1944’ will strap around his ankles and refuse to let go.) 

He tried telling his therapist about it, but he was still trying to get comfortable with the idea of ‘mental health’, an idea that was still new to  _ this decade _ . In the 40s, it was entirely foreign. Though that was another thing modernity had on the twentieth century. The rose colored charm of red lips and quarter dollar coffee hid the true rot of neglect underneath. Steve learned the hard way that men at war were supposed to shake the screams of comrades of their backs and uproot the tire in their veins because, afterall, there was nothing really there. Just a touch of “battle fatigue. You’re fine, Steve. Your country needs you.” People had options in 2014. Mostly because people knew better in 2014. There were support groups for men and women who were physically at home but mentally still coming back for war. DC’s meetings were usually held in a nice church near his apartment and lead by Sam Wilson and attended by vets usually from the War on Terrorism (strange name, considering America’s war was an act of terror itself.) who Steve knew could never understand what it was like when the whole world was at war seventy years ago, but could connect with what it felt like to be in two places at once— torn between  _ knowing _ you’re safe at home but constantly  _ feeling _ like you’ll never escape the heat of the battle that will never really end. 

Sam was a good guy, a friend. He and Steve had gone out for drinks a couple times, talked about their shared life experiences. 

Steve always felt a little weird making friends in the new millennium. He usually had no idea to talk about and wound up having to sit and nod his head while people tried to tell him how to catch up on all the things he’d missed out on. Sam and Steve’s neighbor, the charming Romanian, Sofia, were the only two people outside of his colleagues who Steve had actually found friends in. 

The hoarse gargle of his engine slowed down into a tired whirr as he pulled into his building’s parking lot. Steve chuckled to himself as he pulled his bike into an open spot next to where his elderly neighbour had parked her car crooked and halfway into the spot next to her. How that woman was still allowed to drive was beyond him. The other day she’d driven up the curb while backing her car out. 

Steve’s eyes quickly adjusted to the hallways’ dim lights. Something savory circled and filled his nostrils— no doubt some delicious Romanian food Sofia had cooked up for dinner (he hoped she had left overs. Just the scent had his mouth watering.) He quickly fumbled for his keys. Somehow, he always forgot to take them out before he made it to his apartment. 

The door next to him opened. Out stepped Sofia. Accented honey dripped from her lips. 

“Late night?” 

“Yeah, you could say that. Excited to finally be off my feet.” 

She chuckled. “I get it. Just got off a twelve hour shift. Sitting down to eat was the highlight of my night.” Her amber eyes glanced towards her door. “Speaking of, I have leftover sarmale. If you want some.”

Steve shoved his hands in his pockets. “Those are the— uh—”

“The cabbage rolls. I know you liked them last time.”

Steve’s lips curved up on their own accord. Sofia raised a bushy brow at him and gave him a small smile. “So, do you want them?”

His chest and neck flared with heat. “Uh, yes. Yes, thank you.” 

“Great, just one second.” Sofia smiled her million dollar smile and disappeared into her apartment. A moment later she was holding a large glass tupperware bin with three decently sized cabbage rolls steaming inside. “Here you are.” 

“These look great, Sofia. Thank you.”

“Any time.” She grinned at him and tucked a dark strand of hair behind her ears. Her eyes fell to her laundry basket, filled with scrubs from her various shifts during the week. A thick silence settled between them. 

Steve forced the words out before he lost the courage. He couldn’t let modernity drag him through life forever. Eventually, he was going to have to plant himself and grow roots. 

“Hey, if you want— if you want— you’re welcome to use my machine while I heat these up. It’s probably cheaper than the one in the basement.” 

Her head tilts. “Really? What’s it cost?”

His confidence was fading, fast. His shoes held his interest before he gathered himself again, chest suddenly feeling like a furnace (he hopes with all his is that she can’t feel the way his flush must be radiating off him in waves. Knowing his luck with women, she probably noticed it the minute his cheeks gave him away.) “Cup of coffee?” 

Sofia gives him the kind of smile that lets him know her response before she even opens her mouth.

(Steve kind of wanted to collapse in on himself like a dying star. He was sure Nat would be proud of him for getting back out there, but the lack of assertiveness in his voice made him feel like he was that small, scrawny kid in Brooklyn again. Oh god. His hands feel so awkward now. How long have they been in his pockets? He should have kept his mouth shut. He  _ really  _ should have kept his mouth shut—)

“Thanks, but I already have a load in downstairs.” Her grip tightened around the basket rim. “Besides, my rotation this week was the Infectious Disease ward, so unless you want to run the risk of getting hepatitis…” 

Whatever was left of his courage popped like a balloon. Steve hung his head for a moment before gathering himself. “Right,” he says. “I’ll keep my distance, then.” 

“Hopefully not too far. I’ll need my tupperware back.” 

Sofia turned and began to make her way down the hall to allow Steve to wallow in the thick embarrassment that came with rejection. (That’s what he was more than anything— embarrassed. But there was also this strange feeling buried under it. He’d shot his shot after three weeks of trying to work up the courage, and yeah, she said no, but he still shot it, hadn’t he? Maybe she wasn’t where he was supposed to lay down roots, but at least he’d tested the soil.)

“Oh.” She turned around, long hair falling over her shoulder. “Next time you go out, you might want to make sure your radio’s off. I mean, I like jazz but it’s not everyone’s taste.” 

“What?”

Something flashed in those golden eyes. “Your radio. It’s been on since I got home.”

As if on queue, the music reaches his ears. It was quiet, a low wave that he hadn’t bothered to notice (too occupied with the blood rushing in his ears) until Sofia pointed it out. 

Steve’s jaw clenched. His face hardened. 

“Right,” he muttered. “Must have forgot to turn it off. Thanks.”

Sofia left with a tight lipped smile. 

Steve turned his head towards the door, fists clenched outside of his pockets. 

If there was one thing he had going for him seventy two years ago, it was that he never forgot. In all his ailments, the thing that Steve could always prided himself on was that he never forgot. And while the ability seemed like a curse after he woke up, it came in handy for trivial things. Like remembering to turn off his vinyl player. 

Steve waited until Sofia opened the door to the laundry room before cracking open the window in the hallway and climbing up the fire escape to his apartment. Something was wrong. The DC night streets seemed too empty, like a ghost town. The office building next door, usually lit up with people who never slept, was a dark abyss. 

The window to his apartment was cracked open. Steve’s heart pounded in his chest. He could feel the blood rush through his veins. His pupils dilated. Jazz music scratched the inside of his ears like nails on a chalkboard. Its melody seemed eerie, sour, even. 

He made sure to leave as light of footsteps as superhumanly possible on his floorboards (notorious for croaking and moaning under his weight). He grabbed his shield, thanking God that he left it conveniently lying against the shelf the lead to the living room where his vinyl player was. Bracing it against him, Steve leaned against the wall and peaked his head over. Relief and annoyance flushed out any fight response he had. 

There, reclining back in an awkward and seemingly uncomfortable position in the dark, was Nick Fury. 

Steve couldn’t help the sign of relief that escaped his lips. He bounced his weight on one knee. “I don’t remember giving you a key.” 

“You really think I’d need one?” Fury countered. 

(It really should have said something about their working relationship that Steve wasn’t surprised in the slightest that Fury had broken into his apartment and made use of his vintage recliner and record player. Or that Fury hadn’t actually broken in at all, considering he insinuated that he could just walk freely in an out whenever he wanted, regardless of if Steve actually wanted him in his apartment or not. 

Working under Fury was… stress inducing, to say the least.) 

Fury sat up in the chair, a strained grunt leaving him as he did so. Steve raised a brow, but didn’t say anything. Fury started typing something on his phone. 

“My wife kicked me out.”

Steve tried to not let his confusion show. “Didn’t know you were married.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me.” 

Steve narrowed his eyes. “I know, Nick. That’s the problem.” His thoughts travelled to the freight ship he was on just three days earlier. 

He was getting tired of being Fury’s dancing monkey. Seventy years on ice. Ever since he woke up, Steve wasn’t sure what he was fighting for. It wasn’t for the world, wasn’t for the country, for himself, or for the fallen comrade he’d killed Red Skull for. Yet he kept fighting. Mostly because he wasn’t sure what he would do with himself if he stopped. The world needed a hero, and the role was thrust onto Steve’s shoulders without much of his say in the matter. The world didn’t care if he was tired. The world didn’t care if each fight spread more rot in his muscles. The world didn’t care if it was carefully stoking his fire with a wooden fork. The world didn’t care if he never left the last fight he was in. He was a star spangled target designed to take the hit for every single one of Fury’s lies and manipulations. And while Steve was sure he’d be at war with himself over it until the day he heaved his last breath, he found himself unable to run away from the fight. 

He felt like an addict unable to wean themselves off a fix. Like a ragdoll being shoved around under Fury’s gloved hands. Fury knew what he was— Steve could play leader all he wanted. He’d always be the good soldier waiting for orders. And it wove fatigue into his bones like fine silk. He didn’t want to be a puppet. 

Steve dropped his shield at his side. He leaned over to turn the light on (because he’d well had enough of Fury hiding in the dark). 

That grenade flick rang through him like a gunshot. Red, slick wounds and ink blot bruises dalmatianed over Fury’s body. There was a ferality in his eyes— something entirely human.    
Steve’s blood ran cold. It curdled inside of him. 

Fury was  _ afraid _ . 

In an instant, Nick flipped the light back off with a gunshot click, laying a broken finger over his lips. He turned his phone screen towards him. 

‘EARS EVERYWHERE.’

“I’m sorry to have to do this,” he continued, “but I had no place else to crash.” He flipped the phone towards Steve again. 

‘S.H.I.E.L.D COMPROMISED.’

Steve understood with rapid urgency. He furrowed his brows, bearing his eyes into Fury’s with an iron gaze. “Who else knows about your wife?”

Fury began typing away again. He stood with some trouble and took a cautious step towards the captain. “Just…”

‘YOU AND ME’ 

“...my friends.” 

Steve’s jaw clenched. “Is that what we are?”

“That’s up to you.” 

Another gunshot dinned through the air. 

No, the lights were still off.    
That was an actual gunshot. 

Fury screamed and jerked forward. Steve grabbed his shield and covered his body. The bullets ricocheted off of it. 

Bullets. There had been more than one shot. 

Fury fell to the ground groaning. There was blood leaking through his wounds, but Steve couldn’t tell where they were. Nick’s shirt was soaked in seconds. Steve grabbed one of Fury’s animated hands and dragged him away from where the shots originated and into his kitchen. He glanced up at the wall Fury was standing in front of. Three large bullet holes exposed the bleak, black sky. Something glimmered on the roof of the building next door. 

Steve moved to investigate, but Nick took a death grip on his wrist. When he opened his palm, a small silver USB sat bloody in it. Fury heaved. Something banged at his apartment door. 

He took the flash-drive with a careful hand. 

“Don’t… trust… anyone…”

The banging was getting louder. Steve readied himself for a fight. He had to protect Fury at all costs. He held his shield with white knuckles. 

One final loud bang. Steve peaked through his bookshelf. 

“Rogers?” 

Steve knew that voice. 

She waded into his apartment with care, a 45 resting in her palms, raised with purpose. Her honey eyes were cold traps. Something bulky was in the pocket of her scrubs. “I’m Agent Cutitari. S.H.I.E.L.D Special Services.” 

“Sofia?” He breathed. 

“I’ve been assigned to protect you.” She dropped her gun after clearing the room and made a steadfast for Fury’s bleeding body. She pressed a brown finger to his neck. 

Steve thought about what Nick had said before he passed out. He tensed. 

“On whose orders?”

Sofia looked back up at him. In the three months he’d known her, Steve had never seen that hardened, harsh expression on her pointed features before. She tilted her head towards Fury and pulled out a walkie-talkie from her scrubs. “His.” 

(Steve didn’t know if he could trust that. He didn’t know anything. Part of him was a little bitter that maybe the last thing Fury ever said to him was more cryptic, coded messages meant to make him question whatever stability he’d made for himself after waking up out of the ice.)

He took another glance out the window as far as he could without exposing himself. 

“Foxtrot is down and unresponsive. Get me an EMT, now.” 

“ _ Do you have a twenty on the shooter?” _

Something metal glinted on the office building’s roof. Then, it moved. Steve took one last glance at Sofia and Fury on his kitchen floor. Maybe he couldn’t trust her, but Fury was already down for the count. And, given that she’d radioed in for help, she probably wasn’t planning on wringing the director’s neck. 

Steve decided. He met Sofia’s eyes. “Tell him I’m in pursuit.” 

That staunch bitterness in his chest made it easy to ignore Sofia’s deterrents. Bracing his shield over his chest and face, Steve jumped through his apartment window. 

Two layers of glass shattered around him in slow motion. Small dustlike pieces sprinkled into his hair and on his jacket. The assailant’s heavy footsteps thudded above him. Steve rolled himself back onto his feet, then took off running, busting through doors, weaving through desks and leaving a trail of splint wood and loose papers in his wake. It was moments like these— high-speed chases that dowsed his blood in adrenaline, waiting and preparing for an attack at any moment— that really reminded him of the serum.

(Well, it’s not like Steve could just forget the scientific mystery that kept him alive. He was reminded of it every time he looked in the mirror or was taller than a refrigerator. Every time he saw Peggy’s decaying body and brain or any instance where he was smashing his fists into an enemy’s face he was reminded of the serum. And while it was a gift, sometimes Steve was too used to being the man he grew up as: a skinny, non-threatening, stubborn little kid too ridden with ailments to do anything powerful. The serum could fix all of that (and it did. The first time he saw red— like  _ really _ saw it— was on Peggy’s bright lips.  _ That  _ was an experience.) but it couldn’t take away the fact that that scrawny man was still in there underneath all the bulk. And sometimes the scrawny man forgets that he’s now six feet two inches tall and two-hundred twenty pounds. So sometimes he slams into walls with his shield and accidentally breaks a desk or two when he’s running through office buildings to chase after the assassin who shot his cryptid boss after, probably, a previous attempt on said cryptid’s life failed. Sue him.) 

The sniper dropped down from the roof and rolled onto his back, taking off in a second on the building next to the office. There was no way he could get away. It was the last one on the street. 

Steve braced himself, propelled forward, and crashed through another window. The attacker was still running. Steve realized, with not much focus on it, that the metal glint he’d seen after Fury had been shot was the guy’s  _ arm _ , which was not something everyday assassins had. (He would know. Steve worked with some of them.) 

With not much else to do and the sniper almost to the edge of the roof and towards civilians, Steve thrust his shield at him as hard as he could. 

Not a moment before it would have rammed into the back of his head, the sniper turned around, extended the metal appendage, and caught it, perfectly still. Steve hardly had time to process. Too much was happening at once. 

_ No one _ had ever caught his shield on a throw like that before. No one. With that amount of force, it would either take off a hand or the shocks from the vibrations of the contact would cause too much pain for it to be caught. But somehow, this guy did it. And that wasn’t even the scary part. 

The sniper looked like he was wearing a black straight jacket, except for a sleeve being hacked off to let his metal arm through. He had weapon carriers littered throughout his uniform, but the guy never pulled one out to finish Steve. There was also a strange black mask concealing his face, and where the mask stopped above his nose, thick black paint coated the man’s eyes. The only human part about him.

His  _ eyes _ . There was something unsettling and utterly terrifying about the look in them. They were shiny and narrowed at Steve, yes, but so unreadable that it shook him to his core. Ferocity, anger, pain, and something else gazed back at him. And a sickening drip of familiarity slid down his throat. 

The sniper took his chance. In the second that Steve was working through his shock, his shield was whisked back at him with a mechanical whir. A soft enough throw that Steve could catch it in his hands without any trouble, but forceful enough that he slid back a foot from the momentum. When he caught himself and looked up, the man was gone. Steve rushed forward, steel eyes tracing figures in the street, desperately trying to seek out the ghost. 

A blur of red and blue blared into the intersection, turning quickly in the direction of Steve’s apartment complex. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> this is what happens when kelsey texts me about bucky barnes at eleven o'clock at night three days into the new year.


End file.
